The histories of tabletop games and video games are deeply woven together. Analog and digital games often share similar mechanics (such as experience points) or similar settings (e.g. dungeon crawling). Many times in the past, game makers have ported titles from one medium to the other. And yet perhaps the most crucial connection between analog and video games lies in the personal biographies of many game designers, who often began work with board games before applying their skills to the […]
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Sidewalk Surfing: The Gnarly History of Skateboarding Part III (1994 to 2019)
In Part I of my skateboarding blog series, I discussed how the first big wave of skateboarding took place from 1959 to 1965, and then skateboarding went mainly “underground” from about 1966 to 1972. Part II told about how the introduction of Frank Nasworthy’s durable composite “Cadillac Wheels” enhanced the skateboarding experience, leading to the second big wave of skateboarding between 1973 to 1981. The third wave of skateboarding extended from 1983 to 1991 when famous skaters Tony Hawk (vert […]
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Space to Play: A Cosmic History of Video Games
A short time ago, in an archive a few states away, I had the pleasure of exploring the far reaches of space—as represented in video games. I am working on a dissertation project examining the role of outer space in the history of the American video game industry. This has meant a lot of rewarding hours spent poring over design documents, reading internal memos, hazarding the tunnels to the fabled City of Myster y in Vanguard, and smashing millions of […]
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Even More Stories from the Toy Hall of Fame
Get out your library cards and alert your book club! With three new inductees to the National Toy Hall of Fame in November, it’s time for another edition of Toy Stories: Tales of the Games and Toys We Love. Last year, I recommended books about five Toy Hall of Fame Inductees and their inventors. This year, dive into four more “old-timers” and one new inductee with this fresh reading list!
Jump Rope, Class of 2000
For generations, American girls have spent their […]
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Play and Language: A Reciprocal Relationship
Both playing and playing with language are naturally occurring, entertaining activities for children. Regardless of the context, children’s play abilities and language abilities seem to develop together, with each enhancing the development of the other. So, whether engaged in pretend scenarios or interacting with some of the many toys designed to facilitate play with words and print, children at play are gaining an understanding of all elements of language (semantic, syntactic, phonetic, morphological, and pragmatic) that will assist them in […]
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2019 Class of the World Video Game Hall of Fame
Every year The Strong welcomes new inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame, and this year the inductees are Colossal Cave Adventure, Microsoft Windows Solitaire, Mortal Kombat, and Super Mario Kart. It’s a fabulous class, one that well embodies the criteria for selection of icon-status, longevity, geographical reach, and influence.
The process for selecting the new inductees begins with a list of twelve finalists chosen by museum staff. This year those finalists were:
Candy Crush Saga
Centipede
Colossal Cave Adventure
Dance Dance Revolution
Half-Life
Microsoft […]
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Kitty Black Perkins: The African American Designer behind the First Black Barbie
Born in racially segregated South Carolina in 1948, Louvenia (Kitty) Black Perkins grew up playing with white dolls gifted by her mother’s employers. In the 1960s, Black Perkins attended an all-black school, Carver High School, where she excelled in art. Upon graduation, she received the gift of a trip to visit her aunt and uncle in California. There Black Perkins put her name on a wait list for commercial art classes at Los Angeles Trade Technical College and, in the […]
Transatlantic Play
There are very few global “cartographic events” in human history—feats of transportation that require the immediate making and dispersal of new maps. Columbus’s arrival in the New World was one. The moon landing was another. To this short list we might add Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic crossing. In 1927, he became the first to fly alone from the continental United States to continental Europe (New York–Paris).
Lindbergh’s various flight exploits are often and understandably overshadowed by his future dabbling with fascism and […]